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#227: By Aimee Ng, Curator Transcript
A battle scene smoky with gunfire unfolds in the distance in Reynolds’s portrait of General John Burgoyne, a British military commander who was also a member of parliament, dramatist, actor, and avid gambler. Probably painted in 1766, the portrait may commemorate his role in Britain’s victorious Portuguese campaign against Spain in 1762, as it appears to have been commissioned by Count La Lippe Bückeburg, his senior officer during the campaign. Here Burgoyne wears the uniform of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons and assumes the dashing stance of a hero of the British forces. In the decade after Reynolds immortalized him in this portrait, he was sent to America three times to support British control over its largest colony. In 1777, as commander of the northern forces, Burgoyne surrendered to American troops at Saratoga, allowing America to win the Revolutionary War. Granted permission by Washington to return to Britain, he was forever after associated with this defeat and lived in obscurity for the rest of his life. The gray hue of his hands is probably the result of a fugitive red pigment that started to fade even during Reynolds’s lifetime.

General John Burgoyne

 (British, 1723–1792)
Dateca. 1766
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions50 × 39 7/8 in. (127 × 101.3 cm)
Credit LinePurchased by The Frick Collection, 1943
Accession number1943.1.149
Commentary

Best remembered as the British commander who in 1777 surrendered to American forces at Saratoga, John Burgoyne (1722–92) was also known in his day as a dandy, gambler, actor, amateur playwright, and Member of Parliament. This portrait may have been commissioned by his senior officer, Count La Lippe, as a memento of their Portuguese campaign of 1762. It is presumably the portrait that resulted from a sitting by General Burgoyne noted in Reynolds’ ledger for May of 1766; Burgoyne’s uniform is that of the Sixteenth Light Dragoons as it was worn until that month. The composition, with the dashing figure silhouetted before a low horizon and cloudy sky, was to become a classic type in Romantic portraiture.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Collection History

Count La Lippe, London, acquired in 1767 (?). Princes of Schaumburg-Lippe, Schloss Bückeburg, Germany. P. Rusch, Dresden. J. Pierpont Morgan. Knoedler. Frick, 1945.

Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German. Volume I. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.

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